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Pass the fortune cookie please….

After simmering in my own stew for the last couple of day (oooh what an appetizing image that must create), I have lots of thoughts that need sorting. Writing is one of my fundamental ways of doing just that. I find that my best writing just happens. I am the mere conduit for words that wish to be read. They are just as much revelations to me as creations of mine. I write to help myself understand. Granted sometimes they are words others might enjoy or find useful, but that is just luck!

Sometimes I have a basic idea of the shape the words will take when I begin. Even more rarely, I have a clear picture and actually take an active role in creating that shape. But more often than not I just start writing and watch with everyone else to see what emerges. It seems sometimes the most profound lessons I learn (relearn?) come in this form. I look forward to see where today’s word journey will take me.

There is a little trick I have learned to help me answer questions I have for myself. I find it very effective. Sometimes I will just pick up the nearest piece of writing, focus on whatever the question is, and then randomly select a bit of something from whatever it is. Sometimes I don’t even have a specific question in mind. That is in essence what I do with my random sticky posts on this site. I go to the blog info menu and simply click on random post. Sure it is a post I wrote, but it never fails to remind me of something, or answer my questions of the day.

It is uncanny how well this little trick works. Does not even matter what the source is. It could simply be a sales pamphlet. But almost invariably it will give me some perspective. I have touched upon this phenomenon in The Key to Finding. However it can be especially meaningful if the source ends up being some work of wisdom!

It is not as if I believe that some guiding hand is making sure that I see certain messages. More that I already know the answer, or am at least receptive to it, and my mind finds the necessary understanding in focusing on something random and unexpected. Like finding a dim star by looking to the side (the only way some stars can be seen with the naked eye). The Key to Finding.

Yep. I took this one too. Just now.

Seems like a good time to do just what I was describing and share what I find here. Already did that random pick on my site and the post that came up today seems oh so appropriate (A new dawn…). But I haven’t done it with any good old fashioned printed media in a while. So here goes:

I just reached to the bookcase behind me an pulled out whatever book my hand grabbed. In this case “The Black Unicorn” by Terry Brooks. I don’t actually have a specific question in mind so one less step. I am closing my eyes and thumbing through the pages until I feel the urge to stop. Page 144. Once again closing my eyes an doing that twirly finger thing on the page.

Turns out the end of a chapter, so not much on the page. But this is what my finger landed near:

“By now, she had returned. She did not have the golden bridle in her possession, but she knew now where it was. Her fairy senses had told her what even the Earth Mother could not. The bridle had been stolen yet again.

She woke Parsnip, gathered her few things, cast a brief glance back at the dark bowl of the hollows, and started walking east.”

Maybe on the surface not anything remarkable. But in my pattern thinking mind, kind of a profound connection to what I have just been saying. The Golden Bridle = the questions I seek answers to. As our fairy friend found what she was looking for by herself, even without the help of The Earth Mother (won’t even go into what that could mean in my life), so too I know where the answers are and can find them myself. Just head east, the direction of the rising sun. A new dawn…

Of course I am creating the connections between those random words and my previously stated thoughts myself. As I said, I don’t believe some force out there decided I needed to see those very words. But my mind DID see something that allowed it to gain a bit of perspective; a bit more understanding.

Since fortune cookies are almost invariably improved by adding the phrase “except in bed” I was wondering if the same couple be applied to this technique…

It’s a good concept – all your mind needs to kick if off into finding things is a little seed of inspiration that can come at a tangent to your current train of thought – it can set your mind thinking about things in a new light. Once you’re derailed by a tangent your mind is free to explore new ideas, except in bed.